Rose Carrarini tells us how to cook with kids
The Rose Bakery founder talks to Phaidon about her new book Breakfast, Lunch, Tea with Children.
There’s a lot more to cooking with kids than just keeping a sharp eye on sharp objects. For instance: what do you do when things get dropped, burnt or broken? What dish should you begin with for that all-essential confidence boost? And, all importantly for time-strapped parents and carers, what about tidying up after? Where does shared load end and unpaid child labour start?
Rose Carrarini’s new book Breakfast, Lunch, Tea with Children: Rose Bakery, may not help you litigate that last point but it’s got everything else pretty much covered.
In it, Carrarini shows parent and caregiver readers how to go about cooking with kids correctly, passing on the knowledge she’s garnered through her many years as a restaurant chef and patron.
Carrarini is, of course, co-founder with husband Jean-Charles Carrarini, of the much-loved Rose Bakery Café chain which opened in Paris in 2002 and now has outlets in London, Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo.
Rose is no stranger to high demanding customers, having catered countless fashion shows around the world. Before that, she worked for a decade in the fashion industry, making garments and textiles.
So, as you might expect, Breakfast, Lunch, Tea, with Children: Rose Bakery is both simple and sophisticated; with a set of clear, step-by-step, instructions for both the grown-ups (that’s you) and the not quite so grown-ups.
Written with her nutritional therapist daughter, Marissa Catherine Carrarini, Rose encourages children to develop their sense of confidence, and to take pride in their creations via a series of recipes that increase in complexity throughout the book. Its 50 recipes – including many vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free - range from simple dishes such as scrambled eggs, granola, pasta sauces and scones, to more complex creations such as goujons, gyozas, and madeleines, thus ensuring there is always a range of tasks for children of all ages and abilities.
We chatted to Rose in her Kent, UK, home kitchen – look out for the videos on our socials – and asked her a few questions about, the book, her beginnings, and cooking with kids.
What are the dishes that kids really love to cook? I find all my English grandchildren just love sweet things like cakes. They're really interested in that sort of stuff. But my Japanese chef’s children in Paris really enjoy putting together salads - and they eat them as well!
What’s the best first meal to start with, breakfast, lunch or tea? I think one should always start with breakfast; the granolas, and the scones, and eggs. That's where I suggest you start if you are a little nervous. Breakfast is often when the kid is raring to go, it's not the end of the day when they get fractious, or you too are tired. You don't want that. And keep to pretty safe tasks like sticking hands in flour and butter. Obviously be aware of heat and sharp instruments. And have things already on hand or prepared so that you can move quite fast, otherwise they might lose interest.
Photography Anne-Claire Héraud
Can you remember the first thing you yourself learned to cook? Well, the first thing I really loved was risotto. I learned that in Italy. We were in a villa, and a wonderful chef in the town came over and he spent a whole day teaching me. I have never forgotten that. It’s still one of my favourite foods, but a lot of people don't make it very well. Even in restaurants; it's very hard to find a good risotto in Paris.
Later I learned how to cook mostly from working with professional chefs. I don’t consider myself a professional, I just started off just wanting to do the food that I liked, and I wanted it a specific way. So I learned a lot from chefs, but I learned mostly what not to do, and what I didn't like doing; because professional chefs work in a very specific way - everything is pre-prepared, as it has to be in a busy restaurant.
Photography Anne-Claire Héraud
Kids are often labelled ‘fussy eaters’, but is there a particular food you leave on the plate? Well, I'm not too fond of seafood. Seafood sometimes frightens me, like octopus and things like that. I'm not very good at it and I think that's due to being born in Africa where, when we went to the beach, there had often been a shark attack. I've been pretty terrified of the sea since. My father had to carry me into the water! So it took me a long time to appreciate fish. It took a long time for me to step back, and taste fish. I really love fish now, but it took a long time. And I'm still not too good on funny looking things.
Photography Anne-Claire Héraud
What’s the one thing you want readers to get out of your book?
I want them to have fun with it and not take it too seriously. it's not a technical book. There are a lot of technical books out there but I haven't done that. It's just something to find enjoyment from food and you get that cooking with children. That's it, really. Just enjoy the food, and use it as a starting off the point. The recipes are basic so you can slant them to your own tastes and flavours, you can always put other kinds of fruit in the scones! You can be creative with it.
I think it will give parents and carers confidence. There's a lot of writing that my daughter did that really points to the moments where to be careful and where not to be careful. The recipes included were the things that my family generally like to eat, which is across the board, Asian food, vegan food - all kinds of food. This is what kids normally like but it's my idea, really, of what is nice to eat as a family.
Photography Anne-Claire Héraud
You’ve catered countless fashion shows; do you try to impress on kids the importance of presentation? Yes, we do that to a certain extent, but my grandchildren have very strong characters, and they have an exact idea of what they want it to look like! So I can only suggest these things. But in general, yes, I think it's nice to impart some kind of aesthetic to it so that they understand that they can't just put a mess out there. But they teach me a lot. It’s a learning experience for both of us.
Photography Anne-Claire Héraud
And do you try to steer them towards healthy choices too, when you can? Absolutely. That's why I use a lot of home meal flour in my recipes where there might normally be white flour. My daughter and my granddaughter are vegans. So a normal shepherd's pie becomes a vegan shepherd's pie with lentils. So, yes, healthy eating as much as possible! And that always sparks good conversations about food among the children around the dinner table – especially at Christmas when there are ten different meals prepared!
Photography Anne-Claire Héraud
How do you deal with the stress of something being burnt, or dropped, or just not turning out right when cooking with kids? My daughter wrote in the book, which I thought was very beautiful, ‘let the flower fall to the floor’. It’s the most gorgeous phrase, because it really describes everything. You learn to relax, you have to let mess happen, so that they don't feel intimidated, and they feel very much more comfortable. And if there is a mess and if things do get burnt, which is quite rare, it's okay. It's the only way to approach cooking with children. You can't be stressed out and needing everything to be perfect.
Photography Anne-Claire Héraud
Million dollar question: How do you get them to clean up afterwards? I haven't quite achieved that yet! Because I've always said, 'don't worry about the mess,' they tend to run out as soon as they’re finished! My grandson who is 14 is only just now removing his plate from the table. If you have a neat and tidy child, you're lucky, but none of mine are.
And finally, apart from your grandchildren, is there one other person you'd have loved to cook for? I was born in South Africa. I would have loved to have met (Nelson) Mandela and talked to him. He was quite elderly when I was growing up. And there are a few amazing actresses like Judy Dench and Maggie Smith, who we just lost. I'd love to have dinner with them. I just think that they are just so wise and so funny and so they just seemed so settled in old age, and I'm sort of coming towards that.
Take a closer look at Breakfast, Lunch, Tea, with Children: Rose Bakery.